


Dandelion's Bakery

by kat_fanfic



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Bakery, First Time, Fluff and Angst, Geralt has a bookstore, I'm Sorry, Idiots in Love, Jaskier is a baker, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Yennefer is all out of fucks to give, quotes from episodes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-02-21
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22834843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kat_fanfic/pseuds/kat_fanfic
Summary: His eyes fell on the cupcake on the man’s plate, half-eaten, and on the tiny, golden, marzipan dragon sitting neatly beside it. Had this giant of a man actually taken the decoration off before biting into the cupcake, and if yes, was this what falling in love felt like?(the bakery AU nobody asked for)
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg (mentioned)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 566





	Dandelion's Bakery

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Swordsandspindles](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swordsandspindles/gifts).



> For the lovely swordsandspindles because she actually did ask for this. :D
> 
> This is terribly self-indulgent and probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but I had a heck of a time writing it, so there. :)

They met at a bake sale. 

Jaskier was only there because his friend Stella had pulled out at the last second and needed someone to take her place. “It’s for a good cause, Jask,” she’d needled. “Just, bring some of your famous medieval cupcakes – you know, the ones with the little lutes and swords and the tiny dragons on them?” 

What she neglected to consider in her blissful ignorance was that it usually took Jaskier about half a day to get those done, and she’d called him two hours before the event. So, it wasn’t really his fault that he had to show up to the venue with cupcakes that even he himself had to admit were sub-par to his usual standards. Melting icing and drooping, hastily made decorations were one thing, but apparently, according to one very loud-mouthed Scot, the cupcakes also weren’t baked through properly, which Jaskier could actually accept as something people had a right to complain about. 

So, he’d kind of expected for the cupcakes not to sell. He’d even expected some boorish comments from the other bakers. What he hadn’t expected, though, was for the little disaster cakes to be actually thrown back into his face. 

“Oi,” he protested, ducking under the flying baked goods. “Fuck off! I’m so glad I could just bring you all together like this.” He wiped icing off his chin, wincing as the surprisingly sharp pieces of a smashed spun-sugar potion bottle poked his skin. 

“Unbelievable,” he muttered and glared at the offenders. A few of them were colleagues – bakers were a weirdly tight-knit and surprisingly competitive bunch – the others were customers, that now, when the fun had ended, looked a little shamefaced at what they’d done. 

One of those customers, though, had not moved at all. Sitting in the far corner, where a bunch of tiny tables had been pushed together to create a little nook, he’d chosen a seat as far away from the other customers as possible. 

The man was, quite frankly, the most attractive human Jaskier had ever laid eyes upon. Even with his weird white hair and the perpetual frown that seemed to live upon his features, there was no getting around the fact that the man had won big in the genetic lottery. He also looked familiar somehow, but Jaskier had no idea where he could have seen the man before without instantly being all over him. 

Curious, Jaskier walked towards the little corner. He didn’t feel bad for abandoning his station. After all, there were hardly any edible cupcakes left, and even if there were, he felt like he had the right to abandon ship after being pelted with the labor of his work. 

After taking a step, he paused, grimacing. 

There was _cake_. In his _pants_. Perfect. 

Grumbling under his breath about jerks with good aim, he stole a free sample of milk from the young woman distributing them, and, taking a deep, fortifying breath, he said: “Love the way you just sit in the corner and brood.”

“I’m here to eat cake,” Adonis-man growled, actually _growled_ , like some sort of caveman. “Alone.”

“Good, yeah, good,” Jaskier stammered, a little taken aback by the almost visceral feeling of _want_ that dark voice had kindled in him. His eyes fell on the cupcake on the man’s plate, half-eaten, and on the tiny, golden, marzipan dragon sitting neatly beside it. Had this giant of a man actually taken the decoration off before biting into the cupcake, and if yes, was this what falling in love felt like? 

Jaskier cleared his throat, tried for nonchalance. “No-one else hesitated to comment on the quality of my baking,” he murmured, “except for you.”

There was no immediate reply, but Jaskier almost swallowed his tongue when eyes the color of amber met his. He’d never seen eyes like this before. Must be a trick of the light, he decided. 

“Come on,” Jaskier teased, grinning at the other man. “You don’t want to keep a man with, uh, cake in his pants waiting.”

Adonis’s eyes narrowed, but otherwise he gave no reaction to Jaskier’s cake-in-pants induced plight. 

But Jaskier was nothing if not persistent. “You must have some review for me,” he insisted, taking a seat across from Adonis. “Three words or less.” More was unlikely to come forth anyway, he supposed, what with the man’s tendency to _not_ speak.

“They don’t exist.”

Jaskier paused. Maybe the man’s parents had made a deal and traded in brains for looks? “What don’t exist?” he asked slowly. 

“The creatures on your cupcakes.” The man looked offended as he spoke. “The only one even coming close to lore is the dragon.”

“And how would you know?” Jaskier asked, curious. 

The man just continued to stare at him, some sort of challenge in his weirdly colored eyes.

“Oh, fun,” Jaskier said, low. He’d known the man looked familiar, but it was only now that he put the clues together. “White hair,” he murmured, ignoring how the man was now looking at his phone, ignoring him entirely. “Big old loner, knack for obscure knowledge and two _very_ scary-looking tomes tucked away in that leather bag over there… I know who you are.”

The man got up without comment, but Jaskier wasn’t so easily left behind. “You’re the Witcher,” he exclaimed, a little louder than intended. “They call you that because you kind of look like the guy in those games, but your real name is Geralt Rivia and you’re the new owner of White Wolf Books, right? Word travels fast in a town like this…” He was talking to air. 

Following Geralt out into the street was a non-brainer. There was nothing here for him at this travesty of a bake sale, and he had never been able to resist a pretty face anyway. 

“Are you going out on a book chase? There some old manuscript that need saving, huh?” he called out, watching Geralt don his gear and then climb atop a motorbike that looked as though it should have its own reality show. It had the name Roach painted on its side in big slanting letters, which, yeah, odd. 

“Need a hand? I’ve got two, one for each of the, uh,” he stared at the weirdly formed handles Geralt was gripping, “devil’s horns?”

“Go away.”

Again, with the _voice_. Jaskier bit back a sound that would have been hard to misinterpret. “I won’t be but silent back-up,” he insisted, a little desperate now. He didn’t quite understand where the sudden need to be close to the man was coming from, but Jaskier was used to following his whims and tried not to think too much on it. 

“Look, I heard your note and yes, you’re right, maybe real quests would make for better inspiration.” Jaskier sucked in a deep, theatrical breath. “And you, sir, smell chock-full of them. Amongst other things, what is that, onion?” He pulled a face. “It doesn’t matter. Whatever it is, you smell of danger, and destiny, heroics and heartbreak…” That last one hit a closer to home than Jaskier liked, but that was ignored with the same aplomb as everything else. 

Geralt shot him a look through his open visor. “It’s onion,” he grunted. 

“Right, yeah,” Jaskier said agreeably, distracted by an idea forming, and then he blurted out: “I could be your baker!”

Geralt looked at him like he was crazy. 

“You know,” Jaskier said, excited. “Like a business-partnership kind of thing? I could have events promoting your store in my bakery, you know, Dandelion, up on Main? I could spread the tales of Geralt Rivia, owner of the only existing copy of the Blaviken Chronicles! Or, would-be owner,” he conceded with a grimace, “had your old bookstore not burned down…”

Geralt’s expression darkened. 

Jaskier gulped. Maybe it hadn’t been his best idea to bring up the tragedy that had made Geralt infamous – mostly due to the rumors that he’d set the fire himself, to cash in the insurance money. “And you could show up at my store, too,” he blabbered on, trying to make his blunder disappear in a wave of word-vomit. “You could tell people about how great my novelty cakes are, and how much you love my breakfast cookies during long shifts…” 

Geralt heaved a sigh. “Come here.”

Jaskier hesitated, but ultimately did as asked – only to be shoved away rather rudely and landing in a heap on the sidewalk. “Uh, ow,” he muttered.

“Come on, Roach,” he heard, and it took Jaskier’s addled brain a second to realize that Geralt was talking to his _bike_. A second later the motor roared and Jaskier was left behind in a cloud of fumes, asking himself when exactly he’d started falling for assholes. 

****

They kept running into each other over the next couple of weeks, largely due to the fact that Jaskier was helplessly fascinated with Geralt. 

“You’re my muse, you know,” he said one day, as he pulled out an assortment of baked goods out of a picknick basket, shoving aside a stack of books that looked ready to be recycled, earning himself a dark look for his trouble. 

“You’re a _baker_ ,” Geralt growled, rescuing the books with a gentleness that seemed at odds with his personality. “Baker’s don’t have muses.”

“I’m also a pastry chef, though,” Jaskier clarified. “And those absolutely do.”

Geralt huffed in disbelief, but he was also wolfing down the chocolate donuts Jaskier had brought, so he totally counted that was a win. 

****

It absolutely wasn’t Jaskier’s fault. Sure, he’d let the man in when Geralt had asked him to put up the closed sign and “lock the door, Jaskier”, but really, how was he supposed to know that the late-night customer was a late-night robber instead?

“Uh, Geralt?” He backed away from the crazy guy with the big-ass knife, hoping against hope that Geralt was a little more like John McClane than he’d had let on so far. 

His hope was for naught. Geralt looked grumpy af, but he raised his arms obediently – arms that could easily crush skinny knife-guy, Jaskier thought sullenly, even as he did the same. 

“There’s not much in the till, you know. Slow day.” Geralt didn’t sound particularly bothered by the whole thing, not even when the robber began ranting about safes and hidden money.

“But you’ve taken it all,” the guy muttered, alternately glaring at them and scanning the store with feverish eyes, as if he expected satchels of coin to just appear on the tightly packed shelves. “It was all supposed to be mine, _ours_ , but you’ve taken and stolen it all, and then you pushed us out and now I’m king of nothing!”

It could have been a political statement, but somehow Jaskier doubted that the man meant for his words to be a social commentary on the evils of colonialization.

“Where’s the money?!” Knife-guy was shouting now.

Jaskier snorted. “This is a bookstore,” he said, too incredulous to be scared. “An _antique_ bookstore, even, full of dusty old tomes this guy here mostly can’t bear to part with, so exactly how much money do you expect there to be?”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say, because a few uncomfortable moments later, he and Geralt found themselves sitting on the ground, back to back, bound by the tape Geralt had conveniently lying around, watching the robber tear the store apart in his search of the hidden money he was convinced was there. 

“This is the part where we escape,” Jaskier murmured, when he felt Geralt testing how tightly they were bound. 

“This,” Geralt hissed, “is the part where he kills us.”

“Us?” Jaskier gasped, “I don’t think so, my friend, I will not be dragged int – oi! Hands off the shortbread! That is not for you, put down the Tupperware right now… ugh, quick, Geralt, do your, uh, your _thing_ , the one where you bore people to death by talking about rare first editions and how much you hate cracked spines!”

“Shut up,” Geralt grunted, but there was no bite behind it. 

Their robber mumbled something that could have been another language but most likely was just him slurring his words so much that they were incomprehensible. 

Jaskier, never the one with the most common sense in any given environment, quipped: “My loser-speech is rough, I only got part of that”, and got a prompt snarl of: “Do you wanna die right now?” thrown back into his face.

“As opposed to later?” Geralt asked, and then Jaskier knew nothing, felt nothing, except for the pain radiating out from his belly, where a kick had forced all the air from his lungs. Groaning, he hunched over as far as he could, given the restraints.

“Let him go,” he heard Geralt growl. “He’s just a baker.”

There was a short, confused silence. “What’s a baker doing in a bookstore?” The man asked, baffled.

“I’m asking myself the same question every day,” Geralt mumbled.

“Sounds like the start of a joke,” the robber giggled, and Jesus, he must be high as a kite, because even Jaskier didn’t find that particularly funny. Especially since he couldn’t think of a punchline that didn’t end in humiliation or, even worse, heartache. 

So, he said nothing as Geralt tried to talk the robber down, as the antiquarian told him about the help he could get, and about how it was a fallacy to believe that feeding his addiction by doing crimes like these was the lesser evil. 

They were rescued not much later, crazy-guy’s yells having alerted the neighbors. By then, they were already free and moving about, though, while knife-guy sobbed like a little baby and ate the shortbread Geralt kept feeding him despite Jaskier’s protests. 

“You _talked_ him out of robbing your store,” the constable asked, when things had calmed down to mere crazy rather than pandemonical. The woman was glaring down at her notes and then at Geralt, as if she could somehow change what she’d been told by sheer force of will.

“Hm.”

“Amazing, innit,” Jaskier confirmed. “Thing is, it gets even weirder when you realise that Geralt here is actually non-verbal most of the time. I think he may have exceeded his allotted wordcount for the whole week with the speech he gave today. Thankfully, I do speak grunt fluently, so what do you think, Geralt, want me to stick around to be your interpreter?” 

“Jaskier,” Geralt growled. 

“See?” Jaskier said to the constable, and patted Geralt’s arm. “What he meant to say was: yes, of course, Jaskier, I would appreciate that very much, thank you for always being there for me, you’re a gem of a human being-“

Geralt did _not_ get arrested that day for doing bodily harm to hapless bakers, but it was a close call. 

****

He called it _The Witcher Assortment_ and it became an immediate bestseller.

“People dig a hero story,” Jaskier explained as he showed Geralt the colorful little cakes, shaped into books and wolves and Geralt’s store’s logo, which happened to be both a book and a wolf. “And they also like supporting local businesses. It’s a win/win!”

Geralt, however, was not amused. “Those are fairy cakes, Jaskier,” he grumbled, eyes narrowed. 

Jaskier huffed and was just about to start a rant about slurs, toxic masculinity, British baking classics and the fact that it was wrong to equate one’s sexuality with the sweets that were named after them. But before he could, Geralt crossed his arms in front of his chest and pulled his mouth into a pout. “I don’t _like_ fairy cakes,” he said and the glare he gave the lovingly iced pastries was nothing short of vicious. 

“Well,” Jaskier said, a bit baffled. “They’re not actually _for_ you, see? They’re _about_ you. You and White Wolf Books, to be exact, and don’t try to tell me that people haven’t started to come into your store more frequently now that my cakes remind them it even exists.”

“They want books,” Geralt conceded, and Jaskier wasn’t quite sure if it was meant as a thank-you or an accusation.

He did manage to soothe Geralt’s ruffled feathers with some well-timed slices of Welsh teabread, though, slathering them generously with salted butter and handing them over until Geralt finally sat back with a satisfied sigh, looking all kinds of mellow and soft and all Jaskier wanted to do was snuggle into him and lick the taste of candied fruit out of his mouth.

Instead, he cleaned his oven and asked himself if he’d ever find a love that wasn’t unrequited.

(He may have written a song about his feelings, too, but that, as well as many others, lived in the bottom drawer of his closet and nowhere else.)

****

The dog kind of _was_ his fault. Insomuch that it sort of wasn’t. 

Sure, he’d needled Geralt for weeks to get him to agree to host the local shelter’s adoption fair in his store, and it _had_ been his idea to have Geralt pose with some of the long-time shelter residents to spice up their social media with a hot antiquarian cradling cute animals. 

He hadn’t expected for the kittens and pups to be all over the man, though, and he really hadn’t expected for Geralt to be such a willing participant.

“He’s saved a lot of animals today,” Duny, who ran the shelter along with his wife, Pavetta, said to Jaskier. “We’ve never had such a great turnout before.” 

“Right,” Jaskier said, scowling at where a shirtless Geralt was cradling a bunch of tiny kittens against his naked chest while the shelter’s photographer made cooing noises and almost blinded the man with flashes, both from her camera _and_ her cleavage. He was not jealous, Jaskier told himself. Absolutely not. 

Having been witness to all this, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise when the next day, he was heading over to White Wolf books with chocolates and some of the dog cookies that were part of his brand-new _PetEat_ line.

A hypoglycemic Geralt wasn’t one to trifle with on a good day, but a hypoglycemic Geralt calling him at three o’clock on an afternoon, growling to “bring more nougat chocolates, pronto”? Jaskier saw it as his duty to humanity to get sugar into the grumpy antiquarian asap. And dog treats apparently, but he was reserving judgment on that one. 

“I made them fresh, just for you,” he said, handing over the chocolates and pulling his fingers back as quickly as he could. He wouldn’t put it past the man to accidentally bite them off in his haste to get to the goods.

“Don’t step on Roach,” Geralt mumbled in between bites of chocolate, and seriously, those were delicate _bonbons_ and not gas station candies. 

Confused, Jaskier looked over to where Geralt’s trusted bike was parked in front of the store, but the man pointed to the ground instead. 

The dog wasn’t much to look at. It was small and sort of mangy-looking, with big floppy ears and huge paws that left wet prints when he walked around. It showed Jaskier its tiny, pointed teeth as it yawned, just as unimpressed with him as he was with it. 

“Wait.” Jaskier stared at the little brown mutt that was now glaring at him as if he’d somehow heard Jaskier’s less than flattering description of him. “You have a dog? Why do you have a - ? And Roach, really? I thought your _bike’s_ name was Roach.”

“She’s not my dog,” Geralt said as if that answered everything. 

“Ah.” Jaskier nodded, frowned, nodded again. “Alright then. And why exactly is she here, in your store, watching you sort books then?”

Geralt pulled a face. “Duny insisted. Apparently, she chose me by peeing on my lap, and now I’m supposed to foster her. Called it the Law of Surprise, said it was a shelter tradition.”

“Huh,” Jaskier said. That totally sounded like something Duny would say. “At least now when you say you told Roach stuff, at least I can pretend you were talking to something with a heartbeat.”

Geralt growled and the dog huffed, settling down next to Geralt’s feet, apparently content with just being near the man. 

Jaskier could sympathize. 

****

Jaskier very deliberately didn’t ask where the dog had gone to, when he noticed her absence a few days later. 

****

Geralt, occasionally, was prone to bouts of insomnia. 

Jaskier, owning a bakery, had to get up _very_ early every day. 

It was a match made in heaven, if heaven were to make matches that brought grumpy, weird-hot antiquarians and neurotic nerd-bakers together. 

“…and then she just left me!” Jaskier was trying to knead the cookie dough into submission, adding things here and there and sampling it occasionally. “Again. Rather coldly, and unexpectedly, I might add. I fear I shall die a brokenhearted man.” He kept the conversation going despite the thundercloud sitting across from him.

He’d made one quip earlier about Geralt’s inability to sleep having something to do with giving back his foster puppy, whose real name was Ciri, comparing it to putting salve on a tumor, which had gone down about as well as a lead balloon.

Now, Geralt was wolfing down the macarons Jaskier had just finished putting together. They looked perfect, but Jaskier found that he’d been a little too heavy on the lemon zest. 

Geralt didn’t seem to mind that, he kept eating them regardless. “Did you bake her a pie before she left?” he asked, spraying macaron crumbs all over the place.

Jaskier pulled a face and nodded. “I did, actually, and she…” he trailed off, a dark suspicion rising in him. He turned, glaring at Geralt. “Why, what are you implying?”

Geralt shot him a telling look.

Jaskier huffed, waving flour-dusted hands in the air. “Oh, we’re so having _this_ conversation,” he said. “Come on, Geralt. Tell me. Be honest. How’s my pie?“

Geralt grunted, still chewing. “It’s like listening to a song, and finding it has no melody.”

Jaskier’s mouth fell open. He tried to find words, any words, that were enough to properly express his indignation. “You,” was what finally came out of his mouth, “need a nap!”

Geralt did not, in fact, take a nap. 

Instead, he sat next to Jaskier, rubbing his back awkwardly as the heavily sampled and decidedly raw cookie dough made a violent reappearance, helped him home and into bed, and he even stayed with him when all Jaskier could do was moan about dying and curl up around his cramping midsection. 

“Drink this,” he said sometime well into the night, handing Jaskier a steaming mug of what smelled like herbal tea. 

“Did you,” Jaskier stared at the mug in his trembling hands. “Did you actually make this? For me?” 

Geralt shrugged. “It’s no magic potion, just a herbal blend Yennefer from the tea shop down the street made for me awhile ago. Always makes me feel better when I’m feeling under the weather.”

Ugh, Yennefer, Jaskier thought, staring down at the brew as if it was about to poison him. 

Wouldn’t put it past her to put something in it that was lethal for slightly lactose intolerant bakers – did they make lactose in pill form? – as she’d had it in for him ever since he’d ruined her first date with Geralt by stumbling in and bleeding all over the both of them after slicing his hand open on a can of mandarins. 

“Drink,” Geralt growled, correctly interpreting his expression. It was a gentle sort of growl, so Jaskier hummed under this breath and took a tiny, careful sip. The tea was warm in his belly and it stayed down, and that in itself felt close to a miracle. 

And Geralt stayed even after that, sitting next to Jaskier on the bed, listening to his incoherent ramblings as if patience was part of his make-up after all, and as Jaskier dozed off, soothed by the man’s warmth and familiar scent, he imagined a soft kiss being pressed to his forehead that guided him into a dreamless, healing sleep.

****

“Come on, it’s over there!” Jaskier pulled back from where he’d grabbed Geralt’s arm just in time to evade a sharp slap on the fingers. 

Yennefer’s scowl was almost a living thing. “Why exactly are we here?” she asked, looking at Jaskier as if he was something icky she’d just scraped off her boots.

Geralt shrugged. 

Jaskier scoffed. “It’s a farmer’s market, what do you think?”

Yennefer smiled at him, very much like a shark would. “Let me rephrase the question,” she said, softly, turning to Geralt. “What is _he_ doing here?”

Sighing, Geralt looked from Yennefer to Jaskier, and back to Yennefer. “We’re helping Jaskier pick out a new fruit vendor,” he finally said. “And we’re getting the things you need for the shop, too.”

“So, this is what you meant when you asked me to go on a romantic weekend stroll to the market?” Her voice was dangerously calm. “The two of us hanging out with your pet baker?”

“He’s not a pet, Yennefer, for Christ’s sake-” Geralt started, but Yennefer was already walking away. 

“You know what?” she said over her shoulder. “This has gone on long enough. I really thought we had something going, Geralt, but it seems like you’re taking every opportunity to _not_ be alone with me.” Shaking her head, her sharp gaze flitted over Jaskier. “I should have listened to Borch. He told me we’d not end up together in the long run, said, there was something else out there for both of us.”

Borch was Yennefer’s assistant in the shop, a curious fella with a weird penchant for dressing in gold sequin tops and speaking in riddles. He didn’t seem like someone Jaskier would readily take relationship advice from, but then again, he was the one with the crush on the ultimate straight guy, so who was he to judge, right?

“Yennefer,” Geralt said, looking like he wanted to reach out to her. But he didn’t, and then she was gone, striding away without looking back at all, her long skirt swinging with each forceful step.

Huh. Unexpected. 

To be fair, Jaskier had kinda known that he was crashing a date by tagging along to this trip, but even he hadn’t expected Yennefer’s reaction to be quite this extreme. “Phew, what a day,” he said, a little helplessly, giving Geralt a sympathetic smile. “I imagine you’re probably-”

“Damn it, Jaskier!” Geralt interrupted, turning towards him with a thunderous expression. “Why is it that whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you shoveling it?”

Jaskier’s heart plummeted. “That’s not fair,” he said, but again, Geralt didn’t let him finish. 

“The dog surprise, the robbery, all of it.” The man sounded fierce, vicious in a way Jaskier had never heard before. “If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take _you_ off my hands!”

The words echoed in Jaskier’s mind. He swallowed hard, staring blindly at Geralt’s back. 

“Right.” He shook his head, tried to keep the wetness gathering in his burning eyes from spilling over. “Right then. I’ll… I’ll get the rest of the samples another time.” Trying to breathe past the ache in his chest was getting harder with every moment. He felt flayed open, raw, the words cutting deeper than any ever had before. And still, he waited, breathless, hoping against hope that Geralt would come to his senses and turn back for him.

He didn’t.

Jaskier sucked in a quick, splintering breath. “See you around, Geralt,” he said, almost choking on the words. 

Geralt’s shoulders tensed, but he said nothing, and the last Jaskier saw of him was his white hair flying in the fall breeze.

****

They didn’t see each other for three weeks. 

Three miserable weeks, in which Jaskier couldn’t bring himself to bake any of the things he’d ever made for Geralt. Unfortunately, that meant he could hardly bake anything at all, since in the months he’d known the man, he’d about worked through his entire repertoire. 

The only thing untouched by GeraltmemoriesTM where the fruit cakes nobody liked anyway, and a new kind of cookie bread Jaskier had invented the day before their falling out. A combination of the two brought something about that seemed to actually please people, though, and for a while, Jaskier skated by just by making those.

Thankfully, his customers were a loyal bunch, and well-versed in the workings of Jaskier’s dramatics. They still came every day, dutifully buying either fruit cakes or cookie bread or the newly invented pastry Jaskier had called _cookie-fruity_ in a fit of whimsy, and none of them had to ask how he was doing because the sparse display in the front of his shop was doing all the talking for him.

He didn’t ask about Geralt, not even when Duny came to visit and hovered about, clearly wanting to get involved. But Jaskier was just done. He had no idea what the other man was doing, how the bookstore was faring, or what was going on with him and Yennefer, and that’s how he preferred it. Reminders were something he liked to avoid – hence the not-baking – and even though he couldn’t help but daydream about impossible things sometimes, he was sure that Geralt had made his decision about not wanting him in his life.

Hence, his total surprise, when on a Wednesday, twenty-two days after their one-sided fight, the doorbell jingled and Geralt stepped into Jaskier’s bakery.

“Hey,” the man said, and Jaskier’s heart went boom.

“Oh. Hey.” He tried really hard to not let it show how affected he was by Geralt’s sheer presence, holding on to his hurt and the anger and wrapping both around him like a cloak. 

Geralt’s eyes seemed to bore into him. “I hope it’s okay I just came by.” 

Jaskier scoffed, cleaning his hands on a dishrag. “It’s a free country,” he answered, hating the slight quiver in his voice as much as the bolt of hope that went through him. “What can I do for you?”

Making a face Jaskier couldn’t interpret, Geralt walked towards him, dragging something with him, something that was struggling and making distinctive yapping sounds. 

Jaskier peered at the ground behind Geralt’s feet. “I wondered where that little thing had gone to,” he said, pointing to Ciri, who was straining against the leash Geralt had her on.

“Got her back from the shelter.” Geralt shrugged. “Pavetta held her for me, not that there was much interest in the mutt.” The last was said with a rueful little smile.

Jaskier cleared his throat, trying not to let that smile get to him. “Regretted giving her up, huh?” he asked, more disdain in his voice than he’d meant to let show.

“Yes,” Geralt said, and then he blushed. He actually, honest to god _blushed_ , and it was so endearing to see the big man showing emotion that Jaskier’s frozen feels began to thaw, totally against his will, and he was so preoccupied by trying to hold onto his anger that he almost missed Geralt’s next words. “But she wasn’t the only thing I regretted giving up.”

Jaskier turned, abruptly. His hands were moving even before he’d decided on what they should do, and in less than a minute, he had a dough going. “Yeah, great,” he murmured, feeling more than seeing Geralt standing at his back, almost behind the counter. Jaskier had wanted his kitchen to be open and visible for his customers, but right now he wished he could just vanish into the back and leave Geralt and his conflicting feelings behind. 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to do this.” Geralt’s voice was soft, almost, gentle?

“Do what?” The delicate dough was turning into a hard mass under his ministrations. Perfect for pasta, but not for the light chocolate biscuits he’d meant to make. 

Hm. Was chocolate pasta already a thing…?

“Jaskier.” Geralt was right behind him. “Could you, just,” and then words morphed into action and Jaskier was held by the shoulders and turned, and Geralt took the bowl with the biscuit pasta dough from him so that his hands were free for Geralt to take and hold. “I came here to apologize.”

Jaskier just stared at the other man, dumbstruck. “To me?” he asked.

Geralt rolled his eyes up, but his lips were twitching again. “Of course to you, Jaskier. What did you think I came here for?”

Jaskier swallowed, hard, a thousand scenarios flashing through his mind that all ended with him shattering into a thousand piece under Geralt’s indifference. “Um,” he said, finally. “Closure?”

Snorting softly, Geralt stepped closer. He smelled like old books and leather and something that reminded Jaskier of, but wasn’t quite, onion. He took a deep breath, savoring that scent he’d never thought he’d ever smell again. 

The hand on his face surprised him, and then the surprised sound he made was swallowed up by surprising lips on his own, and he was just so _surprised_ by all of this. 

“Is this alright?” Geralt murmured against his mouth, cradling Jaskier’s face still, and he all but melted into the man.

“Uh, yes,” he mumbled, pressing forward and in, and the kiss was heat and tongue and affection and exasperation all rolled into one. 

“You’re an idiot,” he gasped out several moments later, when they’d moved deeper into the kitchen nook, all grappling hands and gasping eagerness, and had done some things that under normal circumstances would have been a little bit too unsanitary for Jaskier to be comfortable with doing here. 

Geralt lifted his head from where it had rested on Jaskier’s shoulder, his face pressed into Jaskier’s neck. “Sure. But care to elaborate on that?” he rumbled, voice low and all sorts of deliciously wrecked. 

“Well, we could have had this from the beginning, you know.” Jaskier gestured between them, indicating rumpled clothing and feelings both. “There was no need for all that angst and unrequitedness.”

Geralt huffed, the warmth of his breath hitting Jaskier’s sensitive skin, making him shiver. “Yes, there was. Nothing worth having ever comes easy. Our relationship, it. It  
was like… dough.”

Jaskier stilled, craning his head to catch Geralt’s eyes. “I’m _very_ interested in how you’ll end that particular metaphor,” he murmured.

“It’s a simile.”

“Geralt.”

Geralt smiled, his rough whiskered chin scraping against Jaskier’s throat. “Well, see, it’s like this. First, we had to make it, put all the ingredients together and see if it would make a homogenous mixture.”

“Oh, big words,” Jaskier grinned. “I like it. So, when did you know our mixture was, uh, homogenous then?”

Geralt moved against him, muscles strong and heavy, and very much _there_ \- and how the hell did an antiquarian get muscles like this anyway? – but they were sort of pliant and Jaskier liked the feel of them against his own much more ordinary body. 

“I knew right away,” Geralt muttered and it took Jaskier’s snuggle-addled brain a moment to connect the answer to the questions he’d asked. “I just needed some time to come to terms with it.”

Jaskier hummed. “Because I’m a guy?”

“Nah.” Geralt’s hand was splayed across Jaskier’s stomach, under his shirt but above where he _really_ wanted it to be. “Because I’m an idiot, remember?”

Jaskier stilled, some of the warm contentedness floating away in the face of remembered misery. “You really hurt me, you know,” he said, as calm and adult-like as he could. 

Geralt made a sound that was very close to the echoing one coming from Ciri, who had curled up on Jaskier’s abandoned _Whip me_ apron. He didn’t try to speak, though, just peered up at Jaskier, his changeable eyes looking like molten amber. 

“I didn’t deserve your anger that day at the market,” Jaskier said, voice growing stronger with every word. “I really, _really_ didn’t. And I just, I won’t take anything like that again, and I need you to get that, Geralt, okay? Because the first time almost killed me and it hurt so damn much, and that was _before_ we’d kissed and-”

This was the point where Geralt couldn’t hold still anymore, and he was swooping Jaskier into an all-encompassing hug, smothering all those remaining resentments in it. “I really am sorry,” he murmured against Jaskier’s ear.

“And an idiot,” Jaskier mumbled into white hair and felt rather than saw the nod. When they pulled back apart, just enough to see each other’s faces, both of them pretended that their eyes weren’t wet.

“Okay,” Jaskier said after a long moment of stupid grins and blushes. “I still don’t understand the metaphor, though, – and yes, it’s a metaphor, Geralt, deal with it.”

“Right. Uh,” Geralt looked down at Ciri as if she could help him get through this. “So, we had the dough ready and all, and it may have looked like it was ready, but it actually was not.”

“Oh?” Jaskier said, grinning. 

“Yeah. It needed to, uh,” Geralt huffed, scrubbed a hand over his face, and then, with a grimace, he said, “it needed to rise.”

“Our relationship dough?” Jaskier chortled, grinning so wide his teeth hurt. “Or did something else need to rise-?”

“Shut up and kiss me,” Geralt said, and then they did, lips smooth, stubble rough, and every thought Jaskier’s previously had, fled. 

****

The next day, the display of Jaskier’s bakery was filled to overflowing. Cupcakes, donuts, shortbread and fairy cakes crowded a huge collection of _PetEat_ goodies, chocolates of all sorts, cookies, macarons and even some _cookie fruity’s_ , just for the hell of it. And none of his customers had to ask how he was doing.


End file.
